[kenhare]

Until well into the 19th century, theft was dealt with by deportation (or execution) in this country (UK). I thought civilisation had come a long way since then, but this disproportionate punishment feels as unjust.
I don't know the woman's income, but as a doctor, it would have taken all my earnings over the next 20 years to pay this off.
Theft is wrong, but so is this fine.

[Jon Seff]

The personal insults in this thread need to stop. Disagree civilly, or do so elsewhere.

[wardoggie]

She was found guilty in two jury trials; the first was deemed a mistrial because of Jury Instruction No. 15 (see the 7th paragraph in this Wired.com article). I can only assume that mistake was rectified in the second trial and that she is indeed guilty.

Having said that, I take issue with your assertion that, "She deserves the fine...." I believe she doesn't. The first jury ordered her to pay $222,000, or $9,250/song. According to this Wired.com* article, the average settlement is $3,500/song. The second jury is ordering her to pay $80,000/song. What could have possibly changed between October 2007 and June 2009 to justify a >800% increase in the fine?

I also disagree with your assertion that, "Now she pays for it". There may have been a slim chance the RIAA could've garnished her wages and recovered some, if not most or all, of the $222,000 fine over the course of her lifetime. Eight times that? Highly doubtful. I think all the jury did is force someone into bankruptcy. Come to think of it, maybe they did her a favor?

Just to clarify my position so that no reasonable person could misunderstand me:

1) She's guilty.
2) She should pay a fine befitting her crime.
3) I don't think $80,000/song is reasonable.
4) Piracy is wrong and should be curtailed, but not at the expense of reason.

* Sorry for posting two links to another online tech pub, but I couldn't find this info on macworld.com.

[j1h15233]

I thought I read somewhere that there was more to this story like she downloaded 24 songs but uploaded like 9,000 or something. Maybe I'm wrong but I do know one thing...the court system is really messed up. We have WAY too many lawsuits in this country and all it takes is one stupid jury to award one stupid person an insane victory and then the floodgates are opened.

[wardoggie]

j1h15233 said:

I thought I read somewhere that there was more to this story like she downloaded 24 songs but uploaded like 9,000 or something.

1,702 if this article is correct.

[bear90039]

I don't think any of the artists involved here will receive anything from the settlement. If anything is recovered it will go to the RIAA and it's attorneys. The taxpayers who paid for this trial will also get nothing. It's sad but it's true.

[Rand]

Firstly the article is incorrect/incomplete. The part missing is she was found guilty of SHARING music online. Now.....not saying I agree with the judgement, however....the record industry looks at it from a lost revenue standpoint. Meaning as far as they are concerned...she uploaded digital copies of copyrighted material online and as such the record company believes now that the pirated copy is out there they will NEVER get any more revenue from that song. Not that she just stole a $1 per song, they believe that she has caused them to lose all future revenue on the songs that she provided a free digital copy of. That is what the jury found her guilty of, causing the record company to lose all future revenue on the shared music.

[srviratamw]

The whole point of this is the punishment fitting the crime. Even the most pious self-righteous person cannot believe that $1.92 million fits something with retail value of $25.
How many of you have taken a questionable deduction cheating Uncle Sam out of $25 or more? That's stealing folks. Should the government be able to come after you for $1.92 million?
I understand intellectual rights, but there's no way the RIAA is interested in the actual artists or their livelihoods. This is purely disproportionate intimidation to try to stop file sharing (which is wrong). This would be like threatening $2 million or 25 years in prison for driving off at the gas pump (which is also wrong and worth twice as much as here "crime").

[Rand]

The RIAA was not arguing that she stole something worth $25. The author of the article did a lousy job of describing what the trial was about. She was found guilty of sharing over 1700 songs. Not a total of 1700 songs, her computer was hosting 1700 different songs for filesharers to download at will. What the RIAA was arguing is that she caused them loss of revenue from those 1700 songs forever! That is, no one would ever have to pay for those songs ever again because through her actions every person on the planet with internet access could conceivably find a free copy of one of the 1700 songs she shared. Look at it a different way. If you were a programmer and every time you wrote a program to sell Microsoft came along, made an exact copy of it and gave it away for free. How would you feel about that? If your program retailed for $20, should Microsoft just pay you $20 and call it even? No! You'd sue Microsoft for $20 plus all the lost potential revenue.

[cphoffman42]

If she and her lawyers are willing to keep contesting the issue, they have a decent case on the unconstitutionality of the fine. As the article notes, the Supreme Court held a few years back that punitive damages disproportionate to the harm are unconstitutional (with disproportionate being basically anything that is 10x or more the original harm). It's not entirely clear that the principle would apply here since copyright is a little different and Congress set up the statutory damages regime, but since it's still a civil claim it should theoretically apply. I would say she probably has a much better chance of getting the fine reduced on appeal than she does of getting before a third jury...

[rab777hp]

But none of you are asking the question- why the hell did she dload them in the first place??? Everyone knows that pirating is wrong, so just don't do it.
And plus, its more about the cost of the rights to the song, what would those cost?

[wardoggie]

No, she was found guilty of sharing 24 songs. The RIAA alleges that she actually made 1702 available, but were only able to prove that she shared 24.